


Don't cry

by AniZH



Category: Victorious (TV)
Genre: Comfort, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29087523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AniZH/pseuds/AniZH
Summary: Beck and Jade are used to hearing people tell them not to cry.
Relationships: Beck Oliver/Jade West
Kudos: 39





	Don't cry

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone and a belated happy new year!  
> I’m so sorry I was gone for so long. So much happened in the last few months. I got my dream job, moved for it, started said job, became an aunt… with Christmas and New Year and the virus going around… I just didn’t get around to write anything. I’m also not sure how much writing I will get done during the next few months because I still have to work a lot. Being an adult sucks. ;)  
> This one shot came to be because of a suggestion by Evie08. I’m not sure if she’ll ever read this and if it’s at all what she was looking for but this was the idea I got due to her suggestion… over half a year ago? Dang.  
> Have a good read!

“Don’t cry.”  
His mother’s voice is full of worry. She never likes seeing her little boy in tears. Especially if she’s the one putting him in them.  
Beck has played with the lego jets he built earlier, making great sound effects. His mother always enjoys watching the three year old play like this. He has such a rich fantasy and makes up such great stories. She never has seen another child as creative as hers and she prides herself on it, honestly. She and her husband must do something right.  
The jets don’t look like jets very much, to be honest, but he makes up voices for the people inside and for the commander watching the fight and it is so easy to follow the story.  
Beck isn’t like other three year olds. He can play alone so well and for so long. His mother never has had a problem with taking phone calls with him around, while her friends constantly complain about not being able to talk to someone without their children complaining or making messes  
His mother would’ve loved to let him play now, but it’s bed time. She let him have half an hour between dinner and now getting ready for bed and warned him again ten minutes ago that it was his bed time soon.  
When she came in now and asked him to brush his teeth, he promptly said no and kept playing.  
She asked him again and when he said no another time, she had to take his jets away. Now he’s crying, loudly, and she feels so sorry for the little boy.  
“You can keep playing tomorrow,” she tells him but he keeps crying: “I wanna keep playing now.”  
“You can’t,” she says. “You have to go to bed. Come on, Beck. There’s no reason to cry. Please, stop.”  
She pulls him into a hug which he accepts, while still crying though. It takes two good minutes of her hugging him and telling him not to cry until he finally stops and comes with her to brush his teeth.

“Don’t cry.”  
Her father’s voice is gruff but he just doesn’t want anyone to ever hear him concerned, not even his three year old daughter.  
His soon to be ex wife left her with him alone for the first time since their separation. Which is also almost the first time he’s alone with her ever, to be honest.  
Her mother allowed them half an hour of TV. He doesn’t know anything about child care, so he does as he’s told and turns the TV off after that half an hour though he doesn’t know what else to do with the girl.  
The girl that promptly starts crying as soon as he turns the TV off.  
“Don’t cry,” he repeats himself, a bit louder to make sure she hears him but she still doesn’t listen but keeps crying instead.  
He doesn’t like the noise. It makes him feel uncomfortable. Why can’t she just stop?  
“Jade, I’m warning you,” he starts but without having a real threat. He doesn’t know what he can do to make her stop crying. How he could or should punish her.  
Well, maybe he shouldn’t punish her for crying. She is only three years old.  
Between sobs, the girl declares: “Wanna keep watching.”  
It’s not his fault that she can’t! “Your mother said you’re not supposed to watch more TV.”  
“But I wanna,” she only responds.  
For a moment he wants to turn the TV back on because who cares? He can’t have her cry the rest of her visit. He wants to spend some good time with her. He might not know what to do with her but he does love her.  
But if the girl tells her mother that he turned the TV back on… what if she won’t bring her by anymore?  
He tries to bribe her instead: “If you stop crying, we can go out for ice cream before your mother comes back for you.”  
That does make her stop crying, slowly.  
“Would you like that?” he asks and with a shaky breath, she nods.

“Don’t cry.”  
His grandfather’s voice is disapproving. A six year old boy shouldn’t cry like this anymore, should he? And that’s exactly what Beck is. A six year old boy, crying as he hugs his grandparents goodbye.  
They helped Beck and his parents move, all the way from a small town near Ottawa to the heart of Los Angeles. After spending another few days with them, getting to know the city with them, they are now leaving, going back home, and Beck’s crying.  
“I don’t want you to leave,” he says through his tears.  
He knows just as well as his grandparents that they won’t see each other all that often anymore. Before, he visited them at least once a week – that won’t be possible anymore.  
His grandfather also sees his wife choking back tears. They know that it was an important move, that their daughter and their son-in-law have great career opportunities here. It’s still sad.  
He also finds it sad. But that’s no reason to cry. He is a man after all. Just like Beck soon will be one. And a man shouldn’t cry. They have to be strong for the women in their lives who feel sad enough without seeing them cry too.  
“You still don’t have to cry about it,” he tells the boy. “Remember your new neighbor? You don’t want her to see you cry like a girl, do you now?”  
The families next door already introduced themselves and they have a girl Beck’s age. She and Beck talked and the adults made comments after they laughed together about a possible future relationship. He thought it made Beck a bit uncomfortable but probably because he does like the girl already.  
Beck looks in his eyes now, still so tearful.  
“Be strong,” he tells him and that finally makes Beck nod and stifle the next sob.  
The boy swallows hardly but finally stops crying, getting closer to being a man.

“Don’t cry.”  
Her grandmother’s voice is cool as she talks to the six year old girl. Her son dropped the girl off. He had to work a shift after all and his ex wife, the girl’s mother, is out who knows where. She always knew that her son marrying that woman was a big mistake.  
Her husband’s also at work. He’s always so good with Jade. She isn’t.  
She honestly just doesn’t like hearing children cry. It’s the most horrible sound in the world for her. She already hated it when her son was little, just couldn’t stand it, and now still feels the urge to put as much distance between the cry and herself as possible as her granddaughter stands before her, crying over her father dropping her off here and her grandfather not being here.  
She’s old enough and shouldn’t cry about something like this, should she? And not so noisily. Why can’t she just stop?  
“Jade, it’s enough,” she tells her harshly and wants to take her by her arm, maybe to ground her or to shake her, she doesn’t know, but Jade already slaps her hand away.  
“He promised,” the girl then whines. “He promised he’d spent time with me.”  
Her grandmother sighs. “Don’t make a drama out of it. It is as it is. If you stop crying I’ll take you to the next movie you want to see.”  
The girl’s crying gets more quiet and then stops. “You will?”  
“Yes.”  
The girl watches her intently. “Promise?”  
Whatever will make her stop crying. “Promise.”  
She never ends up taking her to the movies.

“Don’t cry.”  
His grandmother’s voice is kind but it’s doing nothing to calm him down and stop his tears.  
“Come on, Beck,” she says to the nine year old, hugging him tight. “You know your grandfather wouldn’t want you to cry.”  
The boy starts shaking and she barely lets go of him, is ruffling his hair instead.  
“He’d want you to be tough, to be a man. What if a girl sees you like this?”  
It doesn’t comfort the boy who’s about to attend his grandfather’s funeral. How can it? But he must think about his grandfather that he wants to be proud, even after he passed, right? Possibly especially now that he passed. And his grandfather wouldn’t have liked to see him cry like this.  
The boy draws in a shaky breath and swallows the next few tears.  
“See,” his grandmother softly says. “You can be strong. I know you can be. Now go hug your mother. Be strong for her, too.”  
Beck looks over and yes, his mother is in tears now. His grandmother knows that he knows that he has to be strong for her. That that is what his grandfather would’ve wanted.  
Determination shows in his eyes as he turns and walks over to hug his mother. His grandmother sobs as soon as he turns away, hoping he doesn’t hear and doesn’t turn back.  
Only later in his father’s arm Beck allows himself to cry again. Because his father needs to be even more of a man than him, has to be even stronger. He can cry with him, right?

“Don’t cry.”  
Her grandmother’s voice is strained; she feels so stressed. Her daughter has put the girl in a taxi to her as soon as she went into labour and took another taxi to the hospital.  
Her husband is sick and now their nine year old granddaughter is here and their daughter is in labour and… gosh, she can’t have Jade cry now. She worries so badly about her daughter. She doesn’t get how she could get herself pregnant again after the terrible birth she had with Jade. Now another birth and then she’ll be alone with the newborn child and the nine year old girl as she got herself another man that left. Great.  
How can’t the grandmother of the girl worry?  
And now Jade’s here and crying because she worries too.  
“Everything alright here?” her husband asks, dragging himself into the room. He has a high fever. She’s worried that he’ll has to go to the hospital too.  
“Yes, get back to bed,” she shoots at him before she turns back to the girl: “Stop crying, Jade! It’s enough!”  
Her husband still hovers in the door as if he could help. He isn’t even supposed to touch Jade – she doesn’t need to get sick too, on top of everything else.  
“Back to bed,” she therefore demands loudly and this time he follows her order. Then, she strictly turns back to the girl: “I don’t need anything more to worry about. Stop crying now!”  
Jade doesn’t. She just runs of to the bathroom and locks herself in. But when she comes out later, her tears a dried and she acts as if she doesn’t worry.

Beck’s fifteen when it all gets to be too much.  
The day has already been bad as it is. In the morning, his mother got called by her mother, his grandmother, about how seriously sick she felt and how scared she was at her age that it was something deadly. His mother cried afterwards as she told him and his father all about it.  
Then he got back a bad grade in his music class where he thought he did well enough.  
And now there’s Jade and they are talking about a play a senior wrote and in which one of his friends stars in. He and Jade both like plays out of that group of friends because they are sort of dark and twisted too.  
“I would’ve loved to play that role,” Beck just now says. They’re standing together in the janitor’s closet. They like to be alone in school every now and then, to make out but also to talk in peace, just the two of them. Their friends are always so loud and in need of attention, not to mention every other kid at this school too. Which is why it’s nice every now and then to just be with each other without interruptions.  
Jade snorts. “I’d like to see you try. That would be the most unbelievable role in which I can imagine you.”  
He doesn’t know why it’s hitting him as hard as it does. But it does. It hurts him and on top of an already bad day, he can’t help but choke up a bit.  
He only shrugs in response because he doesn’t trust himself to open his mouth.  
Jade continues with a smirk: “Come on. You must know that Eddy will do much better in that role than you ever could.”  
Maybe it hurts him so badly because he knows that Jade is his biggest fan. Jade is the one who thinks the world of his acting, who always encourages him. And if she thinks he can’t do a certain role…  
He knows she’s teasing him. Well, he guesses she’s teasing him. They do that so often, acting as if they don’t adore every step the other one is taking. But for some reason, this time, tears start to run down his face.  
He only sees Jade’s smirk drop and her eyes widen before he hides his own eyes behind his hands. Gosh, he never cried in front of her before! And he shouldn’t, right?  
“Hey,” Jade softly says after a second. “You know I was joking, right?”  
“Yeah, I’m,” he starts but can’t finish. As much as he tries to push the tears back, they keep coming. They possibly even get worse because now he feels ashamed, crying in front of Jade. She must think he’s a wuss.  
“Hey,” Jade says again and then draws him into a warm embrace.  
She doesn’t tell him not to cry though her instinct is to say exactly that, after people told her so often to stop crying. But she won’t say it. She sees how much Beck is hurting and why not let him cry it out?

Jade’s fifteen when it all gets to be too much.  
She just did a one-time performance of a play of an older classmate. It was a big thing with not only their acting teachers watching but also a few showbusiness people. That happens every now and then, depending on the performance and the connections the students involved have. Many of them have relatives in showbusiness – they all do live in LA.  
She had a decent role in that play. And forgot a line and messed up a whole scene with that.  
How stupid is she? Of course she messed up. She just isn’t made for this. She wants to be special, she wants to be an artist, an actress and she just isn’t. She’ll never succeed. Just like her father always said.  
She barely manages the last remaining scene after her mess-up and the curtain call, then she’s out of the Blackbox theatre, not remaining to chat with anyone or even change back from her costume into her own clothes. She just leaves for the restroom and locks herself in a stall. As cliché as that is… She needs to be alone right away. She can’t even manage the distance to get out of school.  
She cries silently, has learned by now not to make noises to not be heard when ever crying close to somebody. Still, she also presses her hand over mouth and nose to absolutely assure to not be heard when she hears the door of the restroom open.  
And then, Beck’s voice, in the girl’s restroom. “Jade?”  
He watched the play too. He must deem her an idiot too. He never would’ve forgot a line like that. And even if, then he would’ve been able to improvise greatly.  
She musters all her strength and manages a voice that doesn’t sound tearful, just angry: “Leave.”  
For a moment, it’s silent, then: “If you need me, I’m gonna be in the janitor’s closet.”  
If she needs him… He hasn’t come to taunt her. Obviously, he hasn’t. He knows how bad she’s feeling and wants to comfort her. But he doesn’t push his comfort onto her without her will. He never pressures her.  
She hears him leaving and only, when the door closes back up, she takes a shaky breath. Well, maybe he can comfort her. Maybe he can somehow make this better.  
She needs a few minutes to calm down and to wash up, to look like normal again, before she walks from the rest room to the janitor’s closet. Beck’s there waiting for her. She wonders how long he would’ve waited.  
She closes the door behind her and they just look at each other for a moment, Beck oh so patiently.  
“I feel so stupid,” she finally confesses.  
“You aren’t stupid,” Beck immediately answers. “You forgot a line, Jade.”  
She doesn’t want to cry in front of him. She never has before. Yes, it’s fine. She has seen him cry already too, still… But when she looks into his eyes… She just starts crying.  
He pulls her into his arms and whispers: “Hey. I’m right here.”  
He doesn’t tell her not to cry though his instinct is to say exactly that, after people told him so often to stop crying. But he won’t say it. He sees how much Jade is hurting and why not let her cry it out?


End file.
